Uncle Gobb and the Plot Plot

by Michael Rosen

  Mr Keenly said, ‘Thank you, Janet,’ and they smiled at each other.

  Then Mr Keenly said that the important people needed to decide if the PLOT OF LAND should go to the school or to Fred Shed. All they could do now was just wait and see.

  ‘Nope,’ said Lizard.

  Mr Keenly was a bit surprised by that. He was even a bit annoyed by it. Lizard was a new girl, and he didn’t like it when any child, especially a new one, just answered him back like that.

  He was just about to say something quite stern and strict, when the bell rang. All the children streamed out of the school and there was a bigger than usual crowd of parents.

  What’s going on? thought Mr Keenly.

  Crackersnacker whispered in Malcolm’s ear, ‘This is something really big, Ponkyboy. Massive.’

  ‘Huge,’ said Malcolm, who was excited and worried at the same time in a fluttery-inside sort of a way. He looked to see what was happening.

  Mum and Brenda were in the middle of the crowd of parents, giving people the notice that the printer had eventually been allowed to print:

  UNCLE GOBB’S EVIL PLOT.

  Oliver’s mum took one of the notices and stuck it under the door of the DREAD SHED SCHOOL.

  A moment later, Uncle Gobb came out of the DREAD SHED, holding it in his hand.

  ‘This is … this is … this is …’

  It looked to Malcolm like he was boiling.

  Uncle Gobb caught sight of Malcolm in the crowd and started shouting at him, You did this. I don’t know how you did this. I don’t know how, but I know it’s your fault. I’ve been to China, and you wouldn’t be doing this in China, I can tell you.’

  ‘But isn’t this your PLOT though?’ asked Crackersnacker.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ said Uncle Gobb.

  ‘What is the point?’ asked Wenda.

  ‘Hey, that’s a good question,’ said Lizard.

  ‘It’s a terrible question,’ said Uncle Gobb, beginning to wind himself up into one of his tornado rages.

  Now, usually, when Uncle Gobb had one of his rages, Mum would say something like, ‘That’s all very well, Derek, but we’re short of milk. Can you pop round to the shop and buy some?’ But today, she didn’t. That’s because she was nearly as angry as Uncle Gobb. She didn’t like his EVIL PLOT. She didn’t like it that Doctor Roop the Doop had got mixed up in it. And she didn’t like it that the people – whoever they were – at were mixed up in it too. And she really didn’t like it that all this was invading Malcolm’s school. Malcolm was doing very well at this school. Yes, he often found things difficult, but she was very pleased with how he was doing.

  So, this time, just this once, Mum didn’t say, ‘Derek, we’re short of milk, can you pop round to the shop and buy some?’

  Instead, in the middle of Uncle Gobb’s tornado, she said nothing. And Malcolm started to hear Freddy’s mum, and Ulla’s and Spaghetti’s and Singalong’s and loads of others, telling Uncle Gobb that they didn’t want his DREAD SHED parked up in the car park and they didn’t want his DREAD SHED in the PLOT OF LAND. And they didn’t want THE GREAT GOBB DREAD SHED CENTRE COMPLEX INSTITUTE FOR IMPORTANT FACTS AND RICH KNOWLEDGE. And they didn’t want him to be telling everyone what were or were not important facts.

  In the middle of all that, Uncle Gobb shouted, ‘I’ve been to China. I know what I’m talking about!’

  But then, Mr Yang said, ‘I’m from China and it’s not like that.’

  And that brought Uncle Gobb to a standstill. He came to a complete and utter standstill.

  Wow, thought Malcolm. Uncle Gobb has come to a standstill, all because my Genie found out what Uncle Gobb’s EVIL PLOT was and we told people and people told more people ...

  ‘It’s not over yet, Ponkyboy,’ said Crackersnacker. ‘He could still get his own way.’

  ‘Really?’ said Malcolm.

  ‘He’s only in one of his standstills for now. He could still get his people to wangle it and make his EVIL PLOT happen. He’s got his genie AND people on his side.’

  Oh no. Why does this sort of thing keep happening? thought Malcolm. Good things, then bad things, then good things, then bad things.

  One moment Malcolm was feeling that it was all going well, and the next it was all feeling bad again.

  Lizard and Wenda were standing there.

  ‘What do you think?’ he said to them.

  Lizard tapped the top of her head.

  Wenda took a raisin out of her pocket, put it into her mouth and started to chew it. Slowly.

  Malcolm got the point. A bad thing was coming along. Or was something even worse coming along?

  CHAPTER 18

  Now What? Or Not Now What?

  It was all a bit tense around Malcolm’s house around this time. Uncle Gobb didn’t say much to Mum. Mum didn’t say much to Uncle Gobb. Malcolm said nothing to Uncle Gobb and Uncle Gobb said nothing to Malcolm. Like I said, it was tense.

  Weasel 2: It’s very tense.

  Weasel 1: It’s so tense you could balance a baked bean on it.

  Weasel 2: On what?

  Weasel 1: On the tense thing.

  Weasel 2: Oh … right. Yeah.

  But Uncle Gobb was pressing on with his EVIL PLOT, even though no one wanted him to. That’s why when he stood in front of the mirror, he said to himself, ‘I’m looking quietly confident.’ This is what football managers say when they think they are managing a good team: ‘I am quietly confident.’

  In fact, in the book ‘Great Football Managers’ Sayings of the World’, you’ll find ‘I’m quietly confident’ along with ‘Football’s a game of two halves’, ‘A game’s not over till it’s over’ and ‘A team is only as good as the team’.

  What Uncle Gobb didn’t know was that Malcolm, Crackersnacker, Lizard and Wenda were plotting too …

  CHAPTER 19

  Only If It’s Empty

  ‘The thing is,’ said Lizard, ‘is … is … Uncle Gobb can only put his school on the PLOT OF LAND if it’s empty.’

  Lizard, Wenda, Crackersnacker and Malcolm were in Malcolm’s bedroom.

  ‘It’s not empty,’ Malcolm said. ‘It’s full of frogs and spiders and grass with arrows on the top.’

  ‘Yup, I know. I meant empty of things that Uncle Gobb would think were in the way.’

  ‘What? Like … people?’ said Crackersnacker.

  ‘Well, it is empty then,’ Wenda said. ‘There aren’t any people there. If Uncle Gobb is given the OK to put his DREAD SHED SCHOOL on the PLOT OF LAND, then BOOM BOOM, he wheels it up and puts it there. End of story.’

  ‘Unless …’ said Wenda, ‘there are people there.’

  ‘Do you mean imaginary people?’ said Malcolm. ‘Like in Toy Story?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Lizard, ‘real people.’

  ‘Right,’ said Malcolm. ‘So what we do is find some real people to be on the PLOT OF LAND.’

  Crackersnacker jumped up and started flicking his fingers.

  ‘Oh yes, I get this!’ he said. ‘I get this! You mean us, don’t you, Lizard? I get this. We go and stand on the PLOT OF LAND. Isn’t it us you mean?’

  ‘That’s no good,’ said Wenda, ‘because when we go off to get something to eat, or go home, Uncle Gobb will nip in there with his

  DREAD SHED, and we’ve lost.’

  ‘Not if we don’t go off to get something to eat. Not if we don’t go home,’ said Lizard.

  ‘Yes,’ said Malcolm, ‘we just stay there forever, like frogs.’

  ‘Or lizards,’ said Lizard.

  Crackersnacker was still up and still flicking his fingers.

  ‘Oh yes, I get this!’ he said again. ‘I get this ... Don’t you see, Ponkyboy? A camp! You know, like Dad’s, Fender’s ... You know … tents and stuff !!!’

  There was the tiniest of tiny pauses while all four looked at each other and got what it was that Crackersnacker was talking about … or was it what Lizard had been talking about? Or was it, in a way, what Malcolm was saying about li
ving like frogs? Or was it, in a way, what Wenda was saying when she was saying that unless they were there all the time, Uncle Gobb would get in there quick with his DREAD SHED?

  Whatever it was, it was a camp.

  A camp!!!

  But it was only a camp in their minds.

  It wasn’t a real camp.

  Not yet.

  They all looked at Malcolm.

  ‘What?’ said Malcolm.

  ‘Nose, Malc,’ said Crackersnacker. ‘We can’t do this on our own, and we can’t ask any of the grown-ups to help us, because they’ll say no.’

  ‘What? Even Dad? Wouldn’t he be able to help us?’ said Malcolm, looking at Lizard, still wondering if he was her dad too. ‘Hasn’t he got tents and stuff hanging about?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Lizard, ‘but they’re about three thousand miles away in Connecticut.’

  ‘That’s a very long way,’ Malcolm said.

  ‘Important fact,’ said Crackersnacker, pretending to be Uncle Gobb.

  ‘So,’ said Wenda, ‘it’s the nose, Malcolm.’

  So Malcolm got on with rubbing his nose.

  Then came the smoke puffing out of his nose, followed straight after by the Genie.

  ‘I am the Genie of Malcolm’s Nose,’ he said. ‘Your wish is my command.’

  ‘OK,’ said Malcolm, ‘we need some tents and some –’

  But the Genie’s mind was on other things.

  ‘Look, guys,’ he said, ‘I’ve been doing some hard thinking. There’s no point in my doing all this working out and body-building just for the sake of it. I need to do something with it: a sport. What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Malcolm. ‘We’ve got a whole heap of stuff that we need you to do.’

  ‘Why’s it always about you?’ said the Genie. ‘Don’t I get a look-in? Haven’t I got things that worry me, which I would like to sort out?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m sure you have,’ said Malcolm, looking at the others with a worried look. ‘But you do say, “Your wish is my command”.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said the Genie, ‘but that’s just something I say. It comes from an old book: ‘Great Genie Sayings of the World’. We all have to say that sort of thing or we get into trouble.’

  ‘When you’re in trouble, do you have to go and see Mrs Office, and stand outside her door?’

  ‘Malc,’ said Crackersnacker, ‘the camp … the tents … remember? … Get him back to that …’

  The Genie carried on thinking about getting into trouble.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘we are put in a room all on our own where we have to think about what we’ve done wrong.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Malcolm, ‘I know. I hate that. I can never think what it is I’ve done wrong. And then … then …’ he said, getting quite cross, ‘they ask you to say sorry …’

  ‘… and you don’t know what you’re supposed to be sorry for!’ shouted the Genie, half laughing, half quite cross too.

  Lizard whispered loudly, ‘The tents, Malcolm. The tents.’

  Wenda gave him a nudge.

  ‘So, then,’ said Malcolm, breathing in, ‘I know it’s not all easy for you today an’ all that, but is there any chance you could help us do a camping thing on the PLOT OF LAND at my school?’

  ‘Tents, you say?’ said the Genie. ‘Hmmm … how many?’

  Lizard held up her hands. Did she mean ten?

  She meant ten.

  ‘Ten,’ said Malcolm.

  There was a long pause. The Genie seemed caught up in a dream for a moment. The children were feeling twitchy. It had seemed like an incredible plan. Risky, tricky, amazing … But now was it turning into a non-plan? A thing that flies by and flies off? Like a fly?

  ‘Do you know where genies come from?’ said the Genie.

  ‘Er … no … yes … I mean no,’ said Malcolm.

  ‘Well, we usually turn up in stories that come from what these days is called the Middle East – but let’s face it, everywhere’s east of somewhere else in the end. And if everywhere’s east, then you can’t have a middle.’

  ‘He’s right, there,’ said Wenda.

  ‘Is he?’ said Malcolm.

  ‘What I’m saying,’ said the Genie, ‘is these tents you’re after, they might look like the kinds of tents that come from where Genies once came from, hundreds of years ago.

  I just need you to OK that, before I put in the order.’

  Malcolm looked at the others.

  Wenda gave the thumbs up.

  Lizard gave the thumbs up.

  Crackersnacker said, ‘This is so amazing, Ponkyboy,’ and whizzed round and round on one foot, while slapping his leg.

  ‘OK,’ said Malcolm.

  CHAPTER 20

  Tents. Or Is It Tense?

  … That’s why, one Saturday morning, when Uncle Gobb opened the front door of the DREAD SHED SCHOOL FOR IMPORTANT FACTS AND RICH KNOWLEDGE – where the pupils that Uncle Gobb had recruited for his school were doing their compulsory Saturday school Important Facts and Rich Knowledge session – Uncle Gobb saw something in the distance that stunned and amazed him.

  Where before there had just been a fence and some trees, he could now see something very different: some tents. Not any old tents. The kinds of tents used by people who travel across the plains of Egypt, Iraq and Syria.

  Uncle Gobb rushed back into the DREAD SHED.

  ‘Do we have a telescope?’ he shouted.

  ‘No,’ said the helper. ‘A telescope is not an important fact for this age of child, Mr Gobb.’

  ‘Binoculars?’

  ‘Same, Mr Gobb,’ said the helper.

  ‘Then I will have to go down, myself, and find out what is going on.’

  So, Uncle Gobb marched out of the car park, across the field, and up to the fence of the PLOT OF LAND.

  He had been spotted coming. Lizard had a telescope and called out,

  So, by the time Uncle Gobb reached the fence, the children, who had been in and around their tents, were now standing on the other side of the fence.

  The children were of course Malcolm, Crackersnacker, Lizard and Wenda, but also a few others had come to join them. Some you know already: Ulla and Spaghetti, Singalong, Freddy, Oliver … and others.

  Uncle Gobb stood at the fence and said, ‘It’s no use. You lot are finished. You are the dregs. You are the nobodies. You are only interested in things that aren’t important. You don’t count. If you just stopped to think about it for a moment, I’M ON YOUR SIDE!’

  ‘Well actually,’ said Crackersnacker, ‘you’re on that side, and we’re on this side.’

  ‘That’s a very good point,’ said Malcolm.

  Uncle Gobb shouted, ‘Bah! A camp. What do you think that’s going to do? Do you think it’s going to stop me from creating the THE GREAT GOBB DREAD SHED CENTRE COMPLEX INSTITUTE FOR FACTS AND RICH IMPORTANT KNOWLEDGE?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lizard.

  ‘Oh it’s you, is it?’ said Uncle Gobb. ‘I suppose this is your idea, is it? Yes, I remember the first time I saw you, covered in mud, in a camp in America. You and your blithering little CAMPS!!!’ shouted Uncle Gobb, and he marched back across the field to the DREAD SHED SCHOOL in the car park.

  ‘Now what?’ said Malcolm.

  ‘There doesn’t always have to be a “Now what?”’ said Lizard.

  That night they made a fire and sang songs.

  Malcolm’s favourite was:

  Malcolm loved that one.

  He dozed off thinking of a tin of tomatoes flying through the air.

  OUCH!

  That would be as bad as a tin of baked beans flying through the air.

  ‘Are you all right, Malc?’ said Crackersnacker, lying next to him in the tent.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘It’s just that you said, “Ouch!”’

  ‘Ah yeah, it was the tin of tomatoes.’

  ‘Right, you want to look out for them.’

  ‘Right.’

  THE APPENDIX TO CH
APTER 20

  (So this isn’t really a chapter.)

  An appendix can be something you find in your belly – oh, hang on, don’t look now. I mean, it’s inside, and I don’t want you to open up your belly to look. But believe me, it’s there. Rather weirdly, it’s there but doesn’t have to be. It can be taken out. And nothing happens. So what’s it there for? Nothing. Just hanging about being no use to anyone.

  An appendix can also be a bit you tag on to a chapter or a book, where you say some extra stuff. In fact, it could be called An Extra. But it can’t be called An Extra Appendix. No one wants an extra appendix.

  OK, no one wants an extra appendix apart from an appendix, who, I guess sometimes gets lonely and wants another appendix to talk to.

  This appendix is for all the questions we have about the camp … like:

  Where will the children get their food?

  Will they get into trouble with their parents?

  What will Mr Keenly say about it?

  Will Mrs Office get angry with them?

  Will the police come and arrest them and put them in prison?

  … Any more?

  Well, I can’t hear you, but if you have got any more questions, please write to:

  The Story Company

  The Department of Questions

  Storyville 43211

  Imaginerica

  ANSWERS:

  The food came first from Mum, Brenda the Mender and Dad, but you see, all the other parents knew about Uncle Gobb’s EVIL PLOT, didn’t they? And they liked what the children were doing, so they also brought food for them. And sleeping bags. And teddies. And then they took the teddies back, because the teddies were embarrassing.